Until last weekend, my version of college football amounted to chili, chips and dip and my brother's friends cheering in our living room. Actually, my version of football in general consisted only of Super Bowl commercials and high school Homecoming games. Football certainly was not a concern in my pre-'Hoo anxiety of leaving everything familiar to me to live in a box with a girl I'd never met before while being faced with the biggest homework load ever. But as Sept. 3 drew near, I started coming down with Orange Fever.
The first football question to plague a first year is what to wear to the game. Now, this may apply to females more than males, but each first year faces the same dilemma. Should I stick to tradition and wear a sundress or a tie or should I be a part of the Sea of Orange? Problems arise within each dress code, too. Will my white sundress be a magnet for pizza and soda? Will I be too conspicuously first-year-ish if I wear my Orange Fever football shirt? And if those questions weren't enough, wearing black was still another option.
I ended up wearing orange -- along with 95 percent of the other fans. My friends and I arrived about an hour before game time to sweat under the blazing sun, watch the players warm up and watch the stadium fill up. I knew CavMan did something before the game started, but naively, I thought CavMan was just our mascot. As his adventures began on the video screen, I realized we had picked the greatest seats a first year can: right behind some upperclassmen. They cheered for CavMan, and I cheered. They booed the demon horse, and I booed. To any onlooker, I looked like a seasoned Wahoo. That is, until an actual CavMan burst through the tunnel riding a real live horse and I started yelling, "Oh my gosh that's so cool!"
Then the real business of the game started. It was crazy! We were all on our feet, yelling and cheering and chanting. The energy in the student section was overpowering. For the first time, I felt like a true 'Hoo. The football team felt the power too; within the first five minutes of the game, we scored a touchdown. Now this was the moment every first year had been waiting for -- the first touchdown and the first chance to sing the "Good Ol' Song." But a problem arose for us expectant first years. When do we sing? We didn't want to miss the start and screw up our very first song. And do we really put our arms around these complete strangers sitting next to us? Luckily again, I had the upperclassmen in front of me to follow. Those words that I'd worked so hard to memorize erased the differences between years. The whole stadium -- first years, fourth years and alums -- unified as Virginia fans. That is, until the chant at the end. Then the first years tripped over our tongues and only got out the first "Wahoowa" and the last "Ray."
Back to the game again, and I realized that I only had a basic understanding of the rules of football. I mean, I understand the downs, but all of those penalties? Every three minutes a referee would throw a flag, then wave his arms around while speaking incoherently into his headset. Again, the upperclassmen in front of me came in handy. If they cheered after the call, I did too. I started getting the hang of things by the end, and even after some of my friends left and Western Michigan began to pretend to threaten the Hoos, I didn't waver.
Of course, Virginia held off Western Michigan to make for a perfect record so far. And let's face it, everybody around me probably knew I was a first year. But you know what? It didn't matter as much as I thought it would. As long as I rooted for U.Va. and sang the "Good Ol' Song" mostly right, nobody cared. You can count on me being right there next home game, ready to cheer the Hoos to victory again.
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